Indianapolis Indiana Forest Carbon Offsets

Audit Analysis

The Eagle Creek Forest Legacy Initiative is a tree preservation project under the City Forest Credits standard with a VVB-confirmed additionality test, a quantified 18.3% leakage deduction, and a 10% buffer pool. However, the project verified its entire lifetime credit estimate (9,455 tCO₂e) in the first 3-year monitoring period—roughly 33 times the pro-rata expectation for the elapsed period—raising significant over-crediting concerns. Several key parameters (FNRB, usage monitoring, CORSIA/CCP status) are absent from the record, and a contradiction exists between the PDD and validation report on the total credit quantity.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠The first monitoring period (3 of 100 years) verified 9,455 tCO₂e, which equals 100% of the lifetime ex-ante estimate—approximately 33× the pro-rata expectation of ~284 tCO₂e for the elapsed period, indicating a potential over-crediting or methodology structuring issue.
• ⚠The PDD (Aug 2024) lists a total ERR of 10,505 while the validation report (Oct 2024) lists 9,455; the 1,050-credit discrepancy is unexplained in the available documents.
• ⚠The verification report states reversal events were 'not addressed' while the validation report states 'none reported'; the 10% reversal pool mechanism (1,051 credits contributed) is described in the detail field but the status is inconsistent across documents.
• ⚠Baseline is project-specific with no documented reassessment date, and the 100-year permanence claim for a tree preservation project carries inherent risk despite the buffer pool.

Credit Vintages